It was long past dark and they were all pretty well done in by the grueling day's march, but Capitán Alejandro Lozada Jauregui wanted to make as much time as they could. They walked single file, speaking little, struggling along by feel. They could benefit from the full moon only where it broke fitfully through the jungle canopy.

The squad had grown used to all kinds of night sounds, but around midnight, one they had not heard before began to grow steadily louder. It approached and became deafening, and foreboding welled up in every one of them. Only Capitán Jauregui remained standing as the overpowering sound of a million dragonflies engulfed them.

They stopped in a small clearing and turned back as one, raising their eyes to the heavens. The laundry van they had so recently left behind obscured the moon. The shoebox-shaped shadow swept across them and hysteria, weeping and panicked cries broke free in their throats. Some of his men, to the capitán's everlasting secret disgust, forgot they were godless communists, crossed themselves and shouted, "Maria, Madre a Dios, deliver us!"